But at the time, there was no role for Hispanics in the rodeo, said Aranza, who was born in Houston in 1930, the son of Mexican-Indian migrants. All he could do was watch from the sidelines and dream.

"In those days there was a lot of discrimination against Mexican-Americans," said Aranza, 77. "Ignorance and injustice and biases. In a way it was good for us because it made us stronger."

Maybe that's why the restaurateur jumped at the chance to join a trail riding club called Los Vaqueros in the late 1970s.

For 29 years Aranza rode with Los Vaqueros, the first Hispanic trail riding group to be chartered with the Houston rodeo. Los Vaqueros also is the longest trail ride in Texas, covering 386 miles over 21 days from the Mexican border to Houston. The group was founded in 1973 by Larry Ramirez, a truck driver from Houston.

"I can imagine you could say it was pride in being who I was and the honor of riding with Larry, who at the time had the only Mexican club there was," Aranza said. "It's in my blood. It takes me back to my roots, since it was the Spaniards that introduced the horse to this continent. I'll probably be out here with these trail riders until the day I die."

Aranza missed this year's trail ride because he was hospitalized with pneumonia and a kidney infection, but he made sure he was there at the end of the trail to greet 70 riders with Los Vaqueros Rio Grande Trail Ride when they arrived at Memorial Park on Friday afternoon, dusty and hungry.

In February, more than 6,000 people participating in 13 different trail rides donned traditional Western wear and saddled up to travel to Houston in time for the rodeo's opening parade downtown on Saturday. The shortest trail ride covers 70 miles from Montgomery. Los Vaqueros, the longest, traverses nearly 400.

"You're in the saddle for such a length of time and you have time to really think about your relationship with your maker, with God," Aranza said wistfully as riders dismounted and unpacked around him. "It takes you back to nature and you learn so much not only from your animal — because you build a relationship that is almost human — but then there's also the friendship you build with people who are willing to embrace you like your own blood. It's a bond you don't even really experience in your own family."

A dozen feet away, Sal Ramirez, 48, parked his covered wagon and wandered over to the open fire where one of his brothers was slow-roasting a blackened hindquarter of beef on a spit. Dinner would be rice, beans, pico de gallo and meat so tender it drops off the bone.

Ramirez, who leads the trail ride with his 47-year-old brother David, won't deny organizing the three-week trek is hard work. But more than that, for the Ramirez family, it's a heritage.

"It gets in your blood," he said. "My dad started this for the Hispanic groups and to keep his kids out of trouble. It's a dream of his that he started and we don't want to let that go away."

This year, Los Vaqueros are riding in memory of Larry Ramirez's daughter Connie Wright, 52, who recently died after a kidney transplant.

Although Larry Ramirez, 73, has long since turned over the reigns of Los Vaqueros to his sons, he still rides along, driving the truck that pulls the all-important portable toilets from camp to camp.

The son of "a real vaquero" or cowboy from Laredo, he marvels at the changes time has wrought along the trail.

"When I started there was just nothing and now you got Whataburgers, you got AutoZones, you got everything," he said. "It's been a real experience."

In all the years the Ramirez family has participated in the rodeo, Los Vaqueros Trail Ride has never won any prizes, which are awarded by judges for authenticity and deportment. They didn't win one on Friday either. But that didn't bother Larry Ramirez much.

"When I started people said, 'You're crazy. No way you'll make it all the way from Mexico,' " he said. "I proved 'em wrong. We did it."